


It's Not Just a Game

by babygirl_0



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Black Mirror, M/M, Slow Burn, Striking Vipers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-07-27 13:19:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20046685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygirl_0/pseuds/babygirl_0
Summary: Inspired by Black Mirror (s05ep01, Striking Vipers), Mickey and Ian start playing a new virtual reality game that allows you to do all kind of stuff while playing it, and it feels very real.What happens inside the game, stays inside, they say.But does it really?"“It’s not just pain!” he repeated “You can feel everything, Mick, everything!”“You are making no fucking sense, Gallagher”“Mick,” he said looking both ways, making sure no one else was listening to them “people are fucking in it. They choose a character, go on two-player mode and they fuck. They fuck in the game”Mickey stared at him for a while, trying to digest the words he had just said.“What the fuck?”"





	1. 0

**Author's Note:**

> hey! super excited about this, as i have been thinking about it since i watched that black mirror episode. if you haven't watched it yet, please do! then you'll know what i'm planning on doing  
anyway, let me know what you think about this first chapter!

“Hey, assface” Mickey walked towards my desk so he could look me in the face and laugh a little at it “you are a lightweight, man. Look at your face”

I tried not to smile at him, I wanted him to know how much of an effort had been to me to wake up that morning “shut up, I’m not drinking with you ever again”

“You are a fucking princess, man” he said, giving me the finger. Unlike me, Mickey looked like he had had a good nine hours of sleep and woke up to a nice bowl of oatmeal and some hot tea. Although six hours, a cigarette and an expresso sounded more like him, I couldn’t believe that was the secret to a well-handled hungover. “See you tonight? Need to practice something”

I was about to respond, but before I could open my eyes and say ‘_no fucking way, leave me alone_’, he was already in his office.  
I sighed loudly and sipped my coffee. He was going to be the death of me.

Mickey and I had been working in the same company for about a year. Even though he had been working there for more time than he was willing to admit, he had never tried to look at me like I was some kind of newbie who didn’t know shit, nor even try to teach me something about time management or computer stuff, unlike the rest of people working there.  
My first day there had been the longest 8 hours of my life. There hadn’t been a single hire for three years, so having my new face around was a delight to some people. I tried my fucking best, but I failed at finding someone who didn’t want to explain to me how to send an email.

I remember the first day I met Mickey. I was at the rooftop of the building, trying not to be found by any of my co-workers. I had found that spot the day before, thinking no one was going to look for me there. I was eating a sandwich, trying to recall how many times had I been asked ‘_is it the first time you work in front of a computer?_’ that day. It looked like that place was full of old people who felt younger just because they knew how to use a fucking laptop. My work might seem confusing to them, but I was used to it. You just needed to have some common sense, know how to send emails and do quick math. Piece of cake.

“Are they stalking you too much?” he said that day. I remember turning my head towards him before he even spoke, ready for yet another one of those stupid questions. Mickey was looking at me, the smoke from his cigarette leaving his mouth slowly. I stared at him for a few seconds, trying to cherish the moment: he was the first person who had tried to have a decent conversation with me.

“It’s not that bad” I managed to say and kept eating my sandwich. He nodded but didn’t say anything, which seemed odd to me at the time.

We stayed like that for a good five minutes, not saying a word, until he finally finished his cigarette and mumbled his goodbye.  
I never thought making a new friend would be that easy. We had talked for approximately thirty seconds and we had already established a nonspoken routine involving each other. We waited for the other’s break to enjoy the silence of the rooftop together. It was the first time in my life someone was letting me speak and I didn’t feel the need to.

“What do you do here?” I asked him one of those days when we had barely two minutes left until the end of our break.

“I’m an illustrator,” he said, scratching his nose with his thumb. I hadn’t figured out yet if it was a nervous tic or just something he did without realizing it. “Striking Vipers? Rings any bell?”

“Are you kidding? Of course” I said “I had a poster above my bed for years. I loved that shit”

“Really man?”

“Swear to god” I said smiling.

“I did that. The illustration, I mean. It was the first thing I did when I was transferred here.”

“No fucking way, really?” I asked in awe, staring at him. I stayed silent, wondering if Mickey could take a compliment. “I love that game, I mean it. And that illustration is fucking amazing”  
He nodded with a smile on his face. He always did that shit, nodding when he didn’t know what to respond. I felt something growing inside of me that day, probably admiration, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it at the time.

  
It didn’t take long for us to start playing Striking Vipers. I had only made a couple of comments about it, saying how much I missed playing it and how good I was at the game, and Mickey was already inviting me over for a game night, opening the drawer the old game was in and dusting off its front cover.  
That day I saw Mickey’s apartment for its first time, and I thought it smelled exactly like him. There was barely anything that screamed ‘this is a home to me’, like family pictures, souvenirs or even train tickets. Oddly enough, that was the main thing that made that place look like Mickey’s house. Or at least, so I thought.

I said hi, and he let me in trying not to look awkward. We spent a few seconds in silence while I analyzed every corner of the room and Mickey touched his nose nervously.

“Wanna drink something?” he said, “a beer?”  
I said yes. I knew I shouldn’t, but I took the beer off his hand.

“It’s been at least five years since I last played” I said once we were sitting on his couch. I took a sip of my beer, thinking about the last time I was offered a drink and I accepted.

“Five years? How are you so sure about winning, then?” I turned my head to look at him and we smiled at each other, finally relaxing. Mickey had a few different kinds of smiles, and that one in particular was one of the few I was not used to seeing.

“I’m going to crush you” I assured him.

It took me 10 games to finally remember how to play, Mickey winning all of them without saying a word. When I changed characters, choosing a redhead that Mickey insisted was great, I started winning almost every game.  
That night we said goodbye pretty late, Mickey smiled at me (that one smile I was not used to) before closing his door and I left his place feeling like I had been drinking too much.

  
I don’t need to explain why we didn’t hesitate to incorporate game night into our weekly routines. Every Wednesday night, we left work in a good mood, both thinking about our reunion a couple of hours later, and went our separate ways to have dinner. It was so easy to be around Mickey.  
One of those nights, we stayed at work until late, so we decided to eat out before heading to Mickey’s apartment. It seemed like nothing at the time, but we ended up establishing yet another tradition: chicken wings on the last Wednesday of the month.

  
After six months working for that company, Mickey and I looked like we had been best friends for all our lives. We drank coffee every morning until 9 am came around, we leaned on the moldy walls of the rooftop every lunch break and, on Wednesday (and sometimes also Thursdays, and Mondays, and even Tuesdays) we left the building together to get something to eat, drink some beers, play any videogame we felt like that night or even smoke some shit in Mickey’s balcony.

  
We spent half a year keeping the routine intact. It made me feel at home, I had never had a friend like Mickey. I’d spend the majority of my childhood and a good amount of my teenage years living in a house with way too many brothers, being just one more of the bunch and at the same time, the only one different in that whole house. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at seventeen, after I had transformed my room (and also Lip’s, Carl’s and Liam’s, my three brothers), into a fort just because I thought the CIA was after me. After that incident, they decided I would be better for all of us if I stayed at a mental health facility, and for a couple of years, I completely forgot what it was like for someone to take care of you because they care about you, no just because they have to.

  
But it was different with Mickey. He didn’t know about this yet, he didn’t know I shouldn’t drink, or about my really strict sleeping schedule, or about the pills I had to take every morning that made me feel numb, but at least not maniac. But he took care of me. After months trying to escape from my hometown, trying to find people who loved me for who I was and didn’t see my bipolar disorder as some baby who needed attention every hour of the day, Mickey took care of me. Maybe he didn’t know it, but he took care of me every day. Every time he bought my favorite chips and kept them in his kitchen, making me feel at home, or every time he brought me lunch when I said I had forgotten about it, or every time he had stayed until late just so he could help me finish some work I had to do. He didn’t know but he was taking care of me.  
I tried to say ‘thank you’ without actually saying it a lot. I would invite him over, offer to pay for the dinner, or try to cook something for him, but he always refused using the same words: ‘Nah man, I’m good. It’s okay’  
That pissed me off a lot, but just because I wanted him to know how thankful I was. I could have told him, but he wasn’t good with words.  
Mickey didn’t know it, but he had been my best friend for a while.

That night, after several ‘we need to practice tonight’, I went to his house with six beers in hand.

“Thanks, man” he said as soon as he opened the door and saw the beers. He hadn’t asked for them, but I knew I had drank the last one the day before.

“Okay, what are we doing tonight?” I asked with a playful smirk once we were sitting on his couch. I was expecting a new game, maybe a rematch on the newest Tetris.

He didn’t say a thing and stood up, walking towards his gaming drawer. He opened it and chose one that looked familiar to me.

“No way” Mickey smiled as he watched my reaction. He hadn’t played Striking Vipers in eight months “this shit again, man. You know you are fucking bad at this game, yet you always come back wanting more”

He lifted his brows and smirked, opening the game “we need to practice, man. I have some exciting news and we need to be ready”

“What exciting news?”

“Shut up, gossip fucker. Stop asking questions and just play it”

“No way, I’m not playing that shit again unless you tell me what is going on”

Mickey rolled his eyes, trying to seem annoyed while he smiled. “C’ mon man, don’t do this shit”

“I’m doing this shit. Just tell me” I was determined to find out why the fuck were we playing a game that was already in the past. The first few months we started hanging out, that game was the glue between us two, the excuse to see each other. Once we were past that shit and started feeling comfortable around the other, we didn’t waste a moment to look for new games to play. We started buying them online, even went together to a couple of games stores to find the right one. There were at least 15 games in Mickey’s drawers, why the fuck Striking Vipers?

  
“I’m doing it again” he said in a whisper.

“What? No”

“Yep. It’s mine. The fucking Striking Vipers X project is mine”

I jumped out of the couch instantly, almost crashing into him. I was ecstatic. “No fucking way, Mickey. No fucking way”

“Yep,” he repeated. I stared at him for a while, unable to process the information.

“Fuck, Mickey. This is big, this is so fucking big. Everyone at the fucking office wanted that shit and it’s yours. Fuck”

“Yep” he said once again.

The Striking Vipers X project had been in the air for at least two weeks. After the success of the first one, Striking Vipers was releasing a second one, ten years after, and they needed a front cover. People wouldn’t shut up about it. It was going to be huge, something never seen before. Some virtual reality stuff or some shit. The budget for the game was incredibly high, they had been advertising it for at least a month, and they were looking for the best fucking front cover.

And it was going to be Mickey’s.

I burst out laughing like crazy. I watched Mickey while I cried of laughter, and it didn’t take long for him to join me. After a minute or two, I walked to where he was standing and hugged him. Mickey made a weird sound and stayed still.

“I'm fucking proud of you, Mick” I said, and he finally got the mobility of his body back and put his arms around me.

One hour later I realized I hadn’t asked something.

“But Mick, why are we practicing for?”

He smiled at me and exhaled a cloud of smoke slowly, “they are giving me the beta version two weeks before the official release”

“No shit”

“Yeah man, you better watch out because I’m gonna be The Shit at that game”


	2. 1

_New York, Friday, November 9._

  
Mickey looked at his reflection in the mirror and tried to fix his messy hair. He was wearing a tank top and some old boxers, as well as a pair of socks that had a few holes in them. He stretched and yawned for a bit and washed his face.

“Shit. Cold” he said in a soft voice.

He walked into the kitchen to make himself some coffee and decided to eat the last Fruit Loops that he had. He had barely gotten some sleep. Ian left around 3 am, way later than he normally did, after having played at least 20 different times to that fucking game, and then Mickey had had trouble sleeping.

He didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t even want to think about it again, but it was because of the hug. He wasn’t sure about this, but he thought that was the first hug he had ever received. It was probably not true, as a child he might had hugged a lot of people, but he wasn’t thinking about that kind of hug. That hug meant that, for the first time ever, someone had cared enough about him. Someone was proud of his work, and all the effort he had put into it. He had laid down on his bed, his body not responding because it was late and he was tired, and he couldn’t help but think about it. ‘What the fuck was that?’ he had asked himself every time the image of Ian putting his arms around him came back to his mind.

The memory lingered in his thoughts for a while. He ate breakfast, had a shower and got ready for work while his mind was still thinking about it. It was only when he saw Ian standing by the door of the building they worked in, with his coffee waiting for him, when he finally forgot about it for a fucking second.

“Looking great, Milkovich” Ian said with a smile on his face. He handed him the coffee and took a sip of his own.

“Shut up” he responded“and turn that smile thing off. Too early for that shit”

Ian giggled a bit while he looked at him in the eyes. He was wearing a red loose hoodie he had just bought, and Mickey thought his hair looked redder than ever.

“What are you doing this weekend?” asked the redhead. Mickey looked at his watch and noticed they were a few minutes late.  
“I’m leaving to LA on Sunday. Told you I had that meeting with the big guys” Mickey gestured for him to go inside the building. He was finally starting to get the caffeine jitters from the coffee he had had half an hour before.

They got in the elevator by themselves, and Mickey checked the hour again. 9:07. It wasn’t usual for him to be worried about being late, but he had been a little bit stressed about his time management skills since the Striking Vipers project had arrived on his desk.  
The doors opened and Mickey mumbled his goodbye, leaving Ian behind. He was used to that kind of stuff, Mickey did it all the time, so he didn’t think anything about it.

The redhead sat down on his chair and turned the computer on. He was late on a few email threads and he was planning on fixing that before lunch break came around. He started to work while he thought about his plans for the weekend. He could call Lip, he hadn’t heard about him for a good two weeks. Or maybe even call the Gallagher’s home, but he wasn’t sure about that one. Fiona was probably going to ask him a bunch of questions he didn’t feel like answering at the moment.

He thought about Bryan, a guy from the upper floor. He had just been hired and he didn’t know anybody there yet. They had met on the vending machines of the sixth floor, and Ian had thought he was really attractive. Maybe if he invited him out, eat something kind of expensive at a nice restaurant, something could come out of that.

Just when he thought he had great plans for the weekend, the screen of his phone lighted up. It was a text from Mickey.

“Wanna come over tonight?” it said.

Ian smiled at it and lifted up his head so he could see Mickey’s black hair from behind the translucent glass.

What he didn’t see was Mickey cleaning the sweat out of his hands and putting his phone back into his right pocket. He had been thinking about sending that text for five minutes straight, not really knowing what to write but feeling an urgent need to hang out with him.

He looked at his sketch, trying to focus on the idea he was trying to portray. He had no idea what was happening inside his mind. He couldn't stop sweating.

Something vibrated in his pants and Mickey didn’t waste a moment look at his phone again.

“What about chipotle?” the text said. Mickey quickly typed “needy bitch” and tried not to smile.

He picked up his pencil, trying to focus on all the papers on his desk once again. Reagan, his boss, has said to him she wanted a rough draft of his idea by Friday, so he could show it in LA the next Monday. It was something they did all the time, be ready beforehand so the people you were making business with knew you were committed to that work.

Reagan was a middle-aged woman who had been working for that company for about 15 years. She has been the one who had found Mickey six years before. He had just finished his studies in a Design School near Chicago with very low grades, but with a head full of ideas that were very different from the people of his class. Reagan has offered Mickey an internship in her company: he would have three months to show her what he was capable of, to prove his talent and his grades were not related at all.

A month and a half later, Mickey had been assigned his first real work ever: the front cover of a game that was coming out in a few weeks. It was really unusual for someone with so little experience to work on something so big, but Reagan chose Mickey to do that job because she trusted him. When she saw Mickey’s sketch, the silhouettes of the two main characters delineated with different scenarios from the game, she was really happy about her decision. She knew it was going to be difficult to pull off, he would soon realize it wasn’t going to turn out like he was expecting, but that was part of the job and she wanted him to learn on his own.

Despite having trusted Mickey completely, his work surprised her greatly. The front cover became really popular in no time, the company selling posters and stickers about it as soon as the game was out.

It didn’t take too long for Reagan to make Mickey a full-time contract and offer him his own office. It wasn’t big, as it had previously been used as a break room in the past, the walls were translucent and there wasn’t a lock on the door, but Mickey didn’t complain, not once. He was not used to someone recognizing his job, let alone admiring it.

He had been Reagan’s right hand all those years. When she found out Mickey got the Striking Vipers' job, she had bought every Snickers she had found on her way to work and placed them all inside Mickey’s office.

Reagan had been the one who had suggested him to fly to LA and meet the creators of the game. She thought it was a nice gesture, and he should somehow make them know he was very thankful for choosing him once again.

Mickey had agreed to it, partly because he had never been in California, but partly because he had always followed Reagan’s advice. They had booked the fly and the hotel room together (everything was on the company, of course) and Reagan had wished him a great trip with a wink.

* * *

Mickey and Ian met again that afternoon at 5:30. The redhead was standing right in front of Mickey’s door when it burst open.

“Hey” he said, with his arm still on the air like he was about to knock on the door.

“Give me a second, gotta take a leak”

Ian took a step back and Mickey went straight to the bathroom. Once inside, he tried to fix his messy hair and smelled his armpit. He stank. He whispered something close to “shit” and quickly grabbed a bunch of toilet papers, rubbing them against his armpits. He threw them in the trash in a hurry and fixed his hair again. Not wanting to think about why he had done that, he got out of the empty restroom and made his way back to where Ian was.

The redhead was waiting for him while he browsed his phone, clearly not in an optimum seating position.

“Ready?” said Mickey, and Ian nodded and got up, still looking at his phone.

They exited the building without saying a word, Ian just paying attention to his phone screen and Mickey with a cigarette ready to be lighted.

Thirty minutes later and a few streets away from Chipotle, Mickey’s stomach made a growling sound.

Ian turned his head to look at him and giggled, earning a light punch on his arm from the other.

“What you want?” he said while he opened the door with the same hand he had used to ‘fuck him up’ “I’ll order so your face can stay glued to that fucking pone”

Ian took a quick glance at the lighted up menu and went for his usual burrito and a lemonade. Mickey nodded and pointed at an empty table.

As soon as their food was on the table, Ian put down his phone and looked intensely at him “You won’t believe this shit, Mickey”

“What?” he said with his mouth full

“How soon are you getting the Striking Vipers X?” he said eagerly, taking a bite of his burrito.

“Fuck, man, is this about that game? Have you been on your fucking phone just because of that shit?”

“Listen to me, Mick, this is going to blow your mind!” his eyes were wide open and he had a little bit of sauce on the corner of his mouth “I can’t believe they did something like that, I mean, who would have thought! Like, how did they manage to do that? Fucking amazing, honestly”

“Can you shut up already and just tell me what this is about?”

“Are you ready? I don’t know if you are”

“I am fucking ready for fuck’s sake”

“Okay, look at this” Ian unlocked his phone and typed something like he was in a hurry. Once the website had loaded, he showed him an article of the New York Post. “Read it”

Mickey took another bite and squinted his eyes at the phone. 

_‘**Striking Vipers X: a new concept of virtual reality.** _

_This game is going to be a turning point when it comes to VR, but not because of the outstanding visuals nor the wide variety of characters and special moves. The uniqueness of this game is solely based on the sensory experience and authenticity of every touch.’_

“So fucking what?” said Mickey “Are you telling me you are fucking excited because you can fucking feel the pain in that game?”

“It’s not just pain, Mickey”

“What do you mean is not just pain? It’s a fucking fighting game, of course you are going to get hit. And what’s the point of a virtual reality game if you can’t feel shit?”

“It’s not just pain!” he repeated “You can feel everything, Mick, everything!”

“You are making no fucking sense, Gallagher”

“Mick,” he said looking both ways, making sure no one else was listening to them “people are fucking in it. They choose a character, go on two-player mode and they fuck. They fuck in the game”

Mickey stared at him for a while, trying to digest the words he had just said.

“What the fuck?”

“I know, it is fucking crazy!” said Ian while he nervously touched his hair “I’ve read a few reviews of people who have gotten the game earlier and it is fucking crazy. They say it feels so real, and every character is different”

Mickey couldn’t get his eyes off Ian. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be.

“Do they like, cum?”

“In the game? Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think the game is prepared for that shit. I think they invested a lot of money on the sensory experience and, you know, you can’t feel pain without pleasure”

Mickey’s eyes were wide open. A bunch of questions were starting to form in his head. When would he get the game, could you try that just on one player mode, could Ian maybe want to play with him, would it be as real as they say, would it had an online mode and, in that case, could that replace Mickey’s monthly trips to the Posh.

Those were a few of the hundreds of questions who passed through his head at the time. Some of them he decided to ignore, because why would he think about something like that.

“Fuck, man” he said with his head down, not really knowing what else to say.

And, who knows, maybe if he had stopped thinking about it for a second and lifted his head in time, he would have seen Ian slowly biting his lower lip. But he didn’t.


	3. 2

_LA, Sunday, November 11_  
  
Mickey arrived at his hotel at 11 pm in California. He had spent the four and a half hours that his plane has been on the air thinking about the talk he’d had with Ian on Friday. They hadn’t spoken about it again, but Mickey woke up on Saturday with the urge to know more about it and called Reagan. He asked about the game, wanting to know when he was going to have his copy, and she had told him he could ask for it once he was in Los Angeles.

Once he was on the plane, his hands started sweating like crazy, thinking about the game and all the potential outcomes of a gaming night with Ian. He couldn’t help but think about it.

He opened the door and turned the lights on. His room wasn’t really big, so he decided to leave his bag at the foot of the bed, opening it to look for a pair of underwear and his toothbrush. He was really tired, the jetlag of the trip was starting to get to him. But it was only 11 pm, so he opened the minibar and grabbed a beer, thinking he wasn’t going to pay for it, so he might as well use it. He looked around the room with the beer on his hand: it was smaller than he initially thought. He didn’t even have a desk, just a queen-size bed, a small tv, and a ridiculous tiny bathroom.

At least he had the views. He was staying on the 15th floor, and a small balcony and a giant window were at the end of the room, leaving barely 2 feet between the bed and the glass. He opened the drapes and took a sip of his beer. The city was there, shinning in the dark. He had never been to LA before and seeing a city like that made him feel a little weird.

He took another sip of his beer and opened his bag again to look for a cigarette and his lighter. He had an uncommon feeling inside his chest. For less than a second, he thought it might be loneliness, but he had spent all his life on his own, and loneliness had never bothered him. He likes it, the peace and the silence. He could be himself like that.

He grabbed his phone from his front pocket with his cigarette hanging between his lips. The screen lighted up showing nothing, not even a text. He felt a pinch in his chest, and he put the phone back into his pocket. He grabbed one of the drapes with his hand, opening the window with the other. It was really cold, and he exhaled slowly, not able to distinguish between his breath and the smoke of his cigarette. He let it open, a bitter wind coming through the window frame. Was New York that nice at night? He couldn't know, he lived on the second floor of a very old building in Prospect Heights, and his shifts were over at 5 pm in the office complex he worked at in Downtown Brooklyn.

It took him more than the usual to finish his beer, and when he did it he closed the window and fell onto the bed, too tired to think about anything else, especially his meeting the next morning.

* * *

_NY, Monday, November 12_

  
Ian found it weird to come into work by himself, carrying with him a single cup of coffee. He sat down at his desk five minutes before nine, not used to not having to wait for Mickey and his morning smoke.

Mickey.

He grabbed his phone from the table and sent him a quick text wishing him good luck and telling him to call once he was out of the meeting.

He looked at the pile of documents on his right and sighed. He had a lot to do that day.

* * *

  
Ian finished his shift that day at 1 pm due to his monthly appointment with his psychiatrist. He took what it looked like the most crowded ride on the subway he had ever been on and arrived at his doctor’s clinic thirty minutes later. He sunk into one of the chairs in the waiting area just to be called two minutes later.

“Hi Ian, how are you?” asked Dr. Davis once they were sitting both in front of her desk, one in front of the other. She was reading her notes while Ian stared at his family picture like he always did. “how’s the sleep thing going?”  
  
“Not so good, Ellen” he had been ignoring his really-strict-sleep-schedule for months, not even knowing how much sleep time was he getting. Most of the time, he came back from Mickey’s apartment after midnight, sometimes even at 2 am. He then would get undressed and would stare at his phone screen for a bit, reading the news or some dumb facebook post. He had to be in the shower every morning before 7:30 if he didn’t want to be late, so he probably didn’t get more than 6 hours of sleep most of the time. He was supposed to sleep a minimum of 8, even 9 hours a night every day. He knew it wasn’t okay, but he also knew the old '_I was just having fun with a friend_' excuse didn’t work with Dr. Davis, so he had to improvise. He had told her he wasn’t sleeping well, but it was all due to the stress of his new job. Too many things to think about, he had said. 

“What does that mean, Ian? Do you feel it is getting worse?” she looked at him, her pen between her fingers.

“I wouldn’t say it that way. I just think…” Ian stopped to think for a second “I don’t know, I just feel it isn’t going anywhere, you know? It’s just how things are right now”

“How is that?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just for a while”

She looked down at her notes and wrote something down.

“I’m sure it will go away soon” he said trying to brush it off.  
  
“That’s bad news, Ian. This issue has been around for two months now, so I think it’s time to adjust your medication again, see if it can help you. I was thinking about adding some more anti-depressants. I know it sounds big, but I promise you it’s only to regulate your sleep schedule, and make sure you are well-rested” she wrote something down while she spoke, not noticing Ian’s face was turning completely white “I was thinking we could start today. Pick up your new medication, try it for a week and see you next Monday, the usual. Just keep in mind you must come here if you feel any side effects, I don’t care how slight they might seem to you. You have my number and the clinic’s number, right?”

Ian didn’t respond. He thought his alibi would work, but he hadn’t thought about its expire date. Of course his stupid excuse was going to have this kind of consequences, his life was completely controlled by everyone. He had decided to ignore everything he had to do, lying to his doctor, and now he was going to have to face the consequences.

He thought about the last time she had adjusted his medication. That time it had been strictly necessary, Ian had been experiencing some mania symptoms for a couple of weeks and he didn’t hesitate to tell her. He had been immobilized on the floor tiles of his bathroom for a full 24 hours, cuddling his toilet like it was his lover, just because the new dose made him extremely dizzy. When they tested a new mix, he had been in his bed for three days, until a nurse of the clinic offered to drop by and made him engulf his new medication. It only took three attempts more over the course of two weeks to finally found the perfect match. He came to work shortly after that, and he was fired.  
That incident had happened about a year prior, while Ian still worked washing dishes at a pizza place in Upper Manhattan, and it took him four weeks to find his current job.

Just thinking about that month and a half give him chills. That just couldn’t happen again. He was happy with his job now. It wasn’t much, it didn’t even seem interesting most of the time, but he had a great paycheck and a fixed schedule, so he really couldn’t ask for more.  
  
“Ian?” asked Ellen, still waiting for her answer.

Ian looked at her in the eyes, debating whether or not to tell the truth. How was he supposed to tell her doctor, with whom he had made an honesty agreement, that he had been lying all that time? It wasn’t only the sleep schedule, he would have to tell her about the beers, the weed, the fast food. He would have to admit that he had been ignoring his “it’s time to go for a run” alarm for at least a month.

“Ian, is everything okay?”  
  
“Actually, no” he finally said “ there is something I have to tell you”  
  
Ian left the place forty-five minutes later with a paper in his pocket where the doctor had written down his next appointment seven days later. He had decided to tell her the truth, worried about the consequences of more lying. Ellen had listened closely to his thoughts. He had tried explaining to her why he was doing it, and that he felt completely incapable of telling Mickey they couldn’t keep doing the things he most enjoyed doing. He cared a lot about their friendship, and it worried him a lot to think Mickey wouldn’t want to hang out with him just because he wasn’t able to do all the thing they usually did. Ian didn’t know how to tell him most of the things they did together were bad for his mental health, it sounded violent and mean.

Ellen had been really understanding of the situation, and she had told him that the best he could do was to come back to his routine and talk to Mickey. He was a great friend, and great friends understand each other’s boundaries.  
Ian had agreed to tell him about it but had left the clinic with a pounding heartbeat. He didn’t want to ruin what he had with his best friend, he didn’t want anything to change. He liked it like that.

He liked silently drinking with Mickey, lying down on the couch while the other lighted up the joint. He liked getting to his apartment late just because they lost track of time while playing, eating, or talking about whatever. He didn’t want to ruin that, he didn’t want them to drift apart from each other just because Ian couldn’t keep up with that life.

Dr. Davis had given him seven days to get back to his routine, worried about the impact of his actual habits. He had made a promise, otherwise, he would have to face a change in his dose of medication (which would have depressants, even sedative effects on him), so Ian had to make a decision. Either tell Mickey the truth or stop hanging out with him as much without a reason.  
  
He opened the door of his apartment with his mind still spinning. He didn’t know what to do. He knew what he should do, but he wasn’t sure about the consequences of telling Mickey the truth. He hadn’t even spoken about his bipolarity with Mickey yet, how was he supposed to tell him about that too?

He went to the kitchen to grab something to eat, deciding crackers could do the trick. He would start the healthy thing the next day. He sat on the couch and heard his phone ringing inside his coat pocket.

“Shit” he mumbled, realizing he hadn’t spoken to Mickey yet. He got up the couch so quickly that the half-empty crackers box landed on the floor, a dozen of the saltine crackers scattering all over his living room.  
  
“Mickey? Hey, hi!” said Ian holding the phone with his shoulder, bending over to pick up the mess “how are you? How did it go? Fuck, sorry I forgot to call you before I was… busy? Hang on a second, these motherfuckers are under my couch”

“What the fuck, Gallagher?” said Mickey, “why the fuck are you speaking at 1.5 speed?”

“Shit, sorry, I just dropped a bunch of this fucking little salty things on the floor”

“Whatever, man. Can you speak or not? I have a lot of shit to do”

“Yeah, yeah I can. Sorry about that” Ian dropped the crackers on the see-through table by the couch and sit down, focusing on the conversation “Tell me about it”  
  
Mickey sighed before answering “They are happy with it. They are in, they like it”  
  
“Wait, really? Do you mean like, the original idea?”  
  
“Yeah, just got out of there. They saw my sketch and it’s all they wanted. They didn’t know what else to add, said it was just perfect”  
  
“That’s so fucking great, Mickey! I’m so proud of you” he was ecstatic “so, what now? Do you have anything else to do? are you staying there or something?

“You miss me, Gallagher?” said Mickey in a low voice.  
Ian opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out of it. He felt his ears turning red, his whole face burning.

“Hey, I gotta go man. See ya” said Mickey and he hung up. Ian stayed with the mouth open and the phone in his ear for a good full minute.

“_What the fuck was that?_” he thought, picking up the rest of the crackers that were left on the floor.

* * *

  
  
Mickey arrived at his hotel room and threw himself onto the bed. He had eaten by himself in an Irish Pub near the building after the meeting, and he had then come back to sign a few papers he had barely read, pick up the game, and talk about colors. One of the interns working there had shown him a room full of color palettes printed on different papers that had left him speechless. He had never seen anything similar. Every color on those palettes had a weird barcode below it that allowed the artist to add said color to his drawing tablet. There was also a bunch of printed sheets in every material you could imagine, all designed to give the artist the privilege of knowing how the color was going to look when printed on a paper-based poster, the plastic cover sheet of the game, or even a digital screen. Mickey had spent half an hour listening closely to all the things the intern had explained to him, and then four hours in which he completely lost track of time.

He had never thought about such a simple solution when it came to deciding which color palette to use and had scrutinized every color printed on those sheets like he was color blind and he had been gifted a pair of glasses that help him see everything in his true shape.  
This investigation went on for hours, picking colors, adding them to a drawing tablet in the room and playing with them. He wanted a place like that. He wanted that to be his office in New York.

When he finally checked the hour, it was almost 7 pm. He had then gathered all his stuff and went to a bar nearby to order some fries and a beer. It was only when he sat down and gulped his drink that he realized he was carrying his Striking Vipers X copy, so he had rushed to finish what he called his dinner and came back to his hotel room.

There he was, lying in bed and reading the instructions of a very futuristic game that did exist against all odds. He had been reading them for about a minute and he had already decided we would land in New York the next day being an expert on the game, and he would surprise Ian with his skills that same night.

He refused to think about the “thing” again – that was the name his mind had given it-, and was determined to believe it was all a plan to have fun with Ian.

Despite that, while he tested the game in the video console of his hotel room (that he had to pay for with his own money so he could have it for the night), he had imagined them playing, fighting and falling on top of each other in a virtual reality that knew no boundaries, not even his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if you like where this is going (and also if there is any mistake)  
thank you for all the amazing comments :)))


	4. 3

_NY, Tuesday, November 13_  


Mickey checked his pockets again. He had forgotten his smokes back in California and was hoping for one of them to at least appear out of the blue. In every other situation, he wouldn't have cared less, he just needed to buy more, but it had been six hours since his last cigarette and he couldn’t wait much longer. He was also still waiting for his bag to appear since the company he had flown with had a really strict policy and his bag had been sent to the hold. Besides, buying a pack of cigarettes in the airport wasn’t an option for him.

“Fuck” he said for the third time in under a minute, and an old lady holding a child turned his head to shut him up, “What you looking at, lady? The suitcase dispenser is the other way”

The woman rolled his eyes and took a few steps back. Mickey sighed, and he heard a giggle coming from his right. 

“You laughing at me?” he asked the woman on his right, who was covering her mouth with her hand. He had his fist ready and his eyebrows were far from his eyes. It wasn’t voluntary anymore, he just did it without thinking.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to” she answered with a smile.

“You didn’t mean to but you laughing at me like I’m some fucking kind of clown or something?” 

She laughed again, this time letting her mouth wide open.

“Fuck off” he said, too impatient to fight her, and turned his head back to the front. 

“Want one?” she said a few moments later, getting two cigarettes out of her purse.

“Newport?” he asked while looking at it with reluctance.

“It’s not like you have any other choice”

“You know I could buy whatever I want once this fucking carousel starts, right?” he took the cigarette and put it behind his ear. 

“Yeah, I’m sure you want to pay 10 bucks for an American Spirit” 

Mickey nodded, and the luggage started to appear after a horrendous and loud sound. 

They both picked up their bags at the same time and exited the airport without saying a word. She stopped by the main entrance and lighted up her cig, offering then the lighter to Mickey.

“Did you know these are called “fags” by the brits?” she said after a long puff.

Mickey looked at her not knowing what to say. She exhaled the smoke slowly and smiled at him, “I’m Brooke, by the way. Are you coming back or just arrived?”

Mickey found himself answering to her and being able to maintain a real conversation with Brook. She was a psychology teacher at Stanford and very often flew to New York to give lectures. She had a big apartment in Los Angeles, so she decided to take the plane from the nearest airport after a long weekend. Mickey didn’t have to ask much more to find out she was stupid rich, especially after she mentioned she was going to stay at one of the most expensive hotels in Manhattan. Where all that money came from was what he couldn’t bring himself to ask. 

“I’m giving a free lecture on Friday, you should come. Let me write down the address” she said and took a last quick drag to her cigarette, throwing it in the ashtray. She found one of her cards on her purse with her contact info and wrote on it. 

“Wanna grab a beer?” he said after she handed him the card, trying to consolidate the new friendship. 

It was weird for him, that kind of thing. It had always been a struggle for him to speak to people, let alone make new friends. He wasn't used to that kind of sudden encounters, but why not go for it while he could.

* * *

  
Ian arrived at his apartment at 6:30pm. He had taken a short detour and stopped at the grocery store on his way home. He was trying to choose between cheese sticks and chicken nuggets when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to eat that, so he had chosen a couple of tomatoes and an avocado. 

He still hadn’t heard a word from Mickey since that morning, and Ian was sure he should have landed a few hours before, but he decided not to think about it.

He changed his clothes and put on some pants, leaving his chest naked. He hated when people did that, not wearing a shirt. He had slept with a few men that slept like that, leaving him wondering if their abs were hotter than the rest of their body, or they just had cold legs. But he wasn’t in the mood for a shower, and his armpits were sweaty.

That was the first day of his new healthy routine, and he was doing pretty great. He'd had a bit of trouble sleeping the previous night, but it was just because he'd been in bed earlier than he was used to. He had a plan: every day he would try to go to bed 15 minutes sooner than the day before, so his body could adjust to the new routine and sleep more than 8 hours at the end of the week. It was a perfect plan.

He placed both tomatoes, the avocado and a few pieces of chicken from the night before in a plate and sat in front of the tv to watch Sugar Rush on Netflix, already missing some junk food. He then did the dishes, had a shower, and chose a new set of bedsheets, hoping they would induce sleep that night.

He looked at the time: it was only 9 pm.

He would be on his way to Mickey’s if it was any normal day, but he didn’t even know if his plane had landed yet. He reached for his phone and called him, but it went straight to voicemail.

Ian then decided that he would organize his healthy lifestyle plan and looked for a notebook. He opened it and started writing.  
First of all, he would write down a list of all the bad habits he had, ranking them on a scale from 1 to 5. Passing out drunk would be a 5. Eating some ice cream, a 1. He tried to write good habits as well, but that list wasn’t as long.

At 9:30 pm, he decided he would start reading one of the six books he had.

At 9:45 pm, he turned the tv on again and decided to watch a dumb movie. He had some popcorn in his kitchen, and that wasn’t only a 1, so he made a bag.

At 11:40 pm, when the movie ended, he brushed his teeth and lied down in bed, not having heard a single word from Mickey yet. Just when he was about to call him for the fourth time, starting to really worry about him, the doorbell rang. Ian was startled by it, it was late and nobody knew his address. The building janitor use to come by his apartment a lot, but not without knocking and certainly not that late.

He got out of bed and approached the door trying to make as little noise as possible. He looked through the peephole and found the hairy head of a man leaning against his door. The man rang the bell again, and Ian answered him without opening the door.

“Who is it?”

“Open the door, Gallagher!”

He opened the door immediately once he heard Mickey’s voice 

“The fuck, Mickey? You smell like shit”

“Fuck off” he responded, moving towards “you have any cheese fingers?”

“Have you been drinking?” said Ian trying to ignore him 

Mickey opened the freezer looking for them himself “You had them last week. You ate them?”

“Mickey, have you been drinking?” he asked again, placing his hand on the other man's shoulder.

“Of course I’ve been drinking, I drink every fucking day, redhead” he answered him, still looking for a certain box of frozen food “now where are those cheese sticks?”

“I don’t have them. I threw them out” said Ian, shutting the door of the freezer “and you know what I meant”

“You threw them out? Why the fuck would you do that?” Mickey was now looking at him, his cheeks red and his mouth partly open. His breath smelled like booze.  
  
“I’m kinda… I’m kinda on a diet” responded him with shame “But that’s for later. Are you drunk?”

“Why the fuck you on a diet?” asked the other, who was looking up and down at him while his eyebrows were as high as his forehead allowed them to be.

Ian decided not to mull over his reaction and asked again “For fuck’s sake, are you drunk?”

“I ain’t drunk. Just drank some beers”

“You ain’t drunk, my ass. Why the fuck didn’t you call me? You didn’t have to drink alone”

He knew he shouldn't drink, but he couldn’t help but feel a little irritated at him. When they started being friends, he would constantly found Mickey sitting in a bar near their workplace all by himself, most of the time drinking. After a few months of finding him sitting alone and joining him, Ian started offering him to hang out together there, and Mickey gradually stopped drinking on his own.

“Wasn’t alone” said Mickey, who had thrown himself into the couch, feeling devastated about the missing cheese sticks. 

Ian sat down on the couch with him, “Reagan?”, he asked. He knew both of them used to go to celebrate together when something big happened. 

“Nah” he said slowly, closing his eyes a bit “this girl I met on the plane. She's a shrink or whatever. Gave me a card with her address and number. I bought her a drink”

Ian didn’t answer.  
He had never asked Mickey about his sexual orientation, but just because he thought it wasn’t necessary. He knew Mickey was into men, and he was 90% sure he was gay. Hearing him speak about a woman felt like a kick in the balls.

“You went on a date with a woman?”

“Wasn’t a date, asshole” he responded, taking up more space in the couch “She is staying in this nice ass hotel and wanted me to check her bed out. Fucking amazing”

Ian’s eyes were wide open. Mickey had had sex with a woman, a woman he'd just met. It might not have been a ‘date’ for him, but that only meant he didn’t care about dating and he was just having fun. Maybe that was what he was doing on Thursdays, or every other day he told him he was busy to hang out with him. Was he banging chicks all that time?  
Ian got up of the couch promptly, walking towards his fridge to drink some water. His throat was dry. He looked at the time: 12:15 am.

He took a look at Mickey, opening his mouth to say he was going to bed, but he was already snoring.

“Goodnight, asshole” he said, covering him with a blanket and turning the lights off.

He laid on his bed and set the alarm for the next morning. He didn’t want to keep thinking about it, but he couldn’t help but ask himself if Mickey had seen that woman because he was into her, or just because he wasn’t ready to deal with his sexuality yet.

He couldn’t choose which one hurt him the most.

  
_NY, Wednesday, November 14_  


“The fuck you so loud for?” said Mickey from the couch with a hoarse voice.

“We have work, asshole” responded Ian, stirring up his oatmeal bowl. It was 8 am and he had to leave in less than 15 minutes if he didn’t want to be late.

That morning had been the first time in weeks he had been able to wake up to go running. He felt great. After 30 minutes running, he had gotten back to his apartment and had a quick shower, not thinking about Mickey (who was still passed out in his couch). Then, he had made himself breakfast, making a lot of noise completely on purpose. 

“Speak for yourself” he shot back

“Whatever, Mickey” Ian finished his bowl and cleaned the few dishes that were in the sink. He didn’t know if he was still mad about his behavior the night before, or just tired of his bullshit, “Just clean after yourself, okay?”

* * *

  
Mickey woke up at noon with a very heavy headache and his shoes still on. It took him a few seconds to realize he wasn’t in his bed, but in Ian’s apartment, so he called out his name a couple of times before realizing what time it was. Luckily, he hadn’t been wrong before -he had the day off. After losing all Sunday taking that plane to California, he had asked Reagan for the day, and it wasn’t unusual for him to wake up late when he didn’t have work.

He wandered for some time until he decided to drink whatever coffee was left on the pot. He took a shower, borrowing a shirt from Ian. He looked stupid in it, his torso was too small for such a big shirt, it almost covered his whole butt. How could Ian look so great in it? 

He tried looking for any sign of edible food, but all Ian had was a bag of oatmeal, some milk, coffee, and a bunch of gross looking vegetables, so he grabbed his things and got out of there. He would change into some decent clothes, eat some leftover mac and cheese from Saturday, and pick up the game, that was still inside his unpacked bag. 

Once he had done all that, he left his apartment, having a great idea in mind: burgers. He stopped by Hari’s, a local grocery store run by a really weird family, to buy some meat. He remembered having seen some burger buns at Ian’s, but he chose to buy tomatoes, cheese, and a bunch of eggs just in case.

He was excited, he could feel the game in his back pocket. It was so small, he had to check it was still there a few times. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was impatient to show Ian all that he had discovered: every movement, every touch, every fight felt more real than reality itself. 

He thought about the fights he had two nights before. He was still testing the game while laying in bed at his hotel, and he decided to go into online mode. Before that, he had been doing some solo action with at least half a dozen of the characters available, and it had felt amazing, so he decided to try it with another person.

It had been weird. The second the fight started, a blonde girl with a really small skirt appeared and started talking weird. Mickey got uncomfortable really fast, and he exited the game right when he heard someone calling him 'Daddy'. 

The next one hadn't been much better. A huge character had run towards him to start fighting. After two missed punches from Mickey, he heard a male voice begging him to stuck his dick up his ass. As much as Mickey had wanted to try it, he felt really weird again and shouted 'exit'. 

He decided to go back to the one-player option and chose the redhead character for the third time that night. He had found a lake in one of the sceneries that offered the game and he could see his reflection on it. He had hammered his dick nonstop, shuddering while he came, and had left the game. 

It had been so weird for him to take off the little switch he had put by his eyebrow and found his dick fully hard. He had come in the game at least 8 times and every one of them had been as intense as the others, but he hadn't even touched his penis in real life. He got naked really quickly and got into the shower turning the water tap on. He had grabbed his dick gently, whining a bit from the pleasure. He couldn't remember the last time he had been that hard. He had started moving his hand in a smooth motion, slobbering a little. All he could think about was red, and it hadn't taken long to finally came in a grunt into his own hand.

* * *

  
When Ian arrived at his apartment at 5:40pm, the whole hallway of that floor smelled like meat and Mickey was sitting in front of his tv drinking a beer.

“The fuck?” Ian took his coat off and hung it near to the door, “Where does that smell come from?”

“Hey, dickhead” said Mickey from the couch while he turned off the tv with one hand and took his beer to the lips with the other, “Made some burgers, you hungry?”

Ian turned around and saw to perfect burgers waiting for them on his kitchen counter.

“You made these?” 

“Yep. Forgot about the fries so I guess we’ll have to eat ‘em like that”

“Why did you make these for?” asked Ian, who was still pinned to the floor pointing at the food. 

“Dunno” he responded once seated. When he noticed Ian wasn’t happy with that answer, he tried to elaborate “Dunno, man. I was pretty faced last night”

“And?” 

“And what? What do you want me to say, Gallagher? Just eat the fucking burger and we are even”

Ian lowered his arm and started laughing.

“The fuck are you laughing at, Gallagher?”

“_We are even_? Are you saying you are sorry, Mickey?”

“The fuck does that come from?” he responded, his eyebrows high up his forehead.

“Oh my God, Mickey. We have been friends for a fucking year and this is the first time you have ever apologized to me.” Ian sat down while looking at him with a huge smile on his face, “Shit, what got into you?

“Just eat the fucking burger, okay? Why you have to make a big deal ‘bout everything, huh?”

“Okay, Mick” he was still smiling, “Just one more thing”

“Fucking what?” he said, trying to swallow his first bite. 

“Thank you” said Ian, who was still looking at him, and Mickey couldn't help but blush intensely.

“Shut the fuck up”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they were supposed to start playing the game on this chapter, but it got out of hand  
i promise some action on the next one!
> 
> hope you liked it :))))


End file.
